


If You Let Me, Here's What I'll Do

by caitthecursed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bad Ideas, Casual Sex, Complicated Relationships, F/M, Library Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-06
Updated: 2013-09-06
Packaged: 2017-12-25 18:28:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/956306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caitthecursed/pseuds/caitthecursed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Padma needed a date to the gala at the British Museum of Wizardry, but he wasn’t supposed to actually show up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If You Let Me, Here's What I'll Do

**Author's Note:**

> Written March 2013. Lyrics are from "Take Care" by Drake ft. Rihanna.

She spotted him over Anthony’s shoulder as he spun her around the corner of the dance floor. They changed direction, moving further away from the door, and she craned her neck to see around Anthony’s head.

“Something wrong, Padma? You look like you’ve seen a troll.”

“A troll would be less of a surprise. Less of a mess, too.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Now you’ve got me curious. What kind of debauchery gets you blacklisted by the iron lady of the conservation department?”

His flirting was harmless; the hungry gleam in his eye at the prospect of gossip, less so. “Nothing salacious, Tony. He just hates dressing up. Now, you promised me a dance, not tedious small talk.”

Anthony let the subject go, but she couldn’t hide on the dance floor all night. When the song ended, Padma retrieved her wineglass and made her way to the front of the hall.

There was a fashion for Muggle formalwear that year, but Seamus still looked underdressed in a grey suit and tie. His shoes were old and his hair was messy, but the suit fit him well. Padma tried to ignore how well the color matched his eyes.

“This is unexpected.”

Seamus shrugged. “I was in the neighborhood, had some time to kill. Figured I’d drop by for a bit.”

Padma’s grip tightened around her glass. “An RSVP is generally appreciated for top-level Ministry functions.”

“I thought you worked here so the Ministry wouldn’t be up your arse all the time.” There was a predatory smirk playing at the corners of his mouth, and Padma was horrified by how attractive she found it.

“Could you speak up a bit, Seamus? I don’t think the head of the Magical Heritage Council heard you.”

This was a mistake. She turned around, already scanning the crowd for Tony, but Seamus grabbed her wrist. Padma teetered on her heels, and he shot out a hand to steady her waist. It was hot through the satin of her bodice.

“Padma, wait. I’m being a right wanker. I just needed to see you again.”

Needed. Not wanted.

Padma dragged him through the doors and down the corridor. The manuscript library was in a secluded corner of the museum, and her team was one of the few with unlimited access. She held her palm against the door and the gold wards faded, allowing her to turn the knob. The room was dark, and shadows from the streetlamps outside crawled up the vaulted ceiling. Padma walked to a table near the end and leaned back against it.

“I’m terribly curious why you came here after ignoring my invitation.” She took a sip of her wine and schooled the tremble in her hands. He’d ignored far more than the invitation, but that was hardly relevant.

“Really? Because I’m bloody curious why you invited me if you didn’t want me to come.”

He spat the last word in her face, pressing his thigh into the folds of her skirt. Padma gasped, bracing her hand on the table. Seamus swiped her wine, knocked it back in a single chug, and placed the empty glass on top of the nearest display case. Padma shivered in the suddenly empty air.

It was shameful how easily her body surrendered to him, her legs falling open and her hands gripping his hair and her tongue chasing the taste of wine into his mouth. Seamus gripped her arse, the slightest pressure encouraging her to rut against his leg, and Padma moaned with a hunger she scarcely recognized.

“Sex in the library? Knew you Ravenclaws were a kinky bunch.” He hunched over to kiss a line down her neck. “Missed this,” he murmured, his lips vibrating against her skin. “Missed you. Christ, Padma, I--”

“Don’t you dare,” she growled, pushing him away and sitting on the table. “Don’t you _fucking_ dare, Seamus Finnigan.” She grabbed his tie and pulled him back up to her mouth, kissing him with the hard scrape of teeth.

His big, rough hands slid up her skirt. Padma was suddenly sixteen again, wearing denim cutoffs around the house just to make her sister’s boyfriend stare. Eight years later, Seamus still knew how to touch her, his hands firm on the tender skin of her thighs. He tugged her knickers down and tossed them somewhere onto the floor before working his zip free. She pushed his jacket off his shoulders, feeling the hard muscles tense under her hands.

Seamus thrust in deep, his trousers still bunched around his knees. Padma wrapped her legs around him, clinging to his shoulders as he pounded into her.

“You knew, didn’t you?” he growled against her neck. “You wore a Muggle dress. You knew I’d be shoving your skirt up to reach your tight, wet cunt. You were ready for me before you even knew I’d show up. Weren’t you, Padma?”

He gripped her hair, just enough to make her tilt her head back, and Padma whimpered. Hairpins clattered to the table, and the prospect of returning to the gala like this, her hair loose and her dress wrinkled and her lipstick all over her face, made something savage rumble in her chest. No one saw this side of her, not Anthony or Dr. Clearwater or even Parvati. Only Seamus knew how to coax it out with sweet touches and wicked words. Only Seamus had looked at an overworked, virginal Ravenclaw Prefect and seen a wild animal rattling the bars of her cage.

He thrust faster, and Padma dug her nails into his shoulders. Seamus grinned. “That’s my girl. Come on, scream for me.”

Padma did. She screamed because she hadn’t come that hard in years, because she no longer remembered the tacky taste of red lipstick, because teenagers kept asking her for advice on time management and career choices. Because there were many attractive men who wanted a partner as well as a lover, who would buy her organic coffee and discuss world politics over breakfast and make love to her with respectful tenderness, but none of them could set her blood on fire.

Seamus came with a groan that rumbled through his chest. He stood there, panting against her neck, his hands slow and reverent at her back.

“Run away with me.”

Padma stiffened.

“We’ll ditch this place, go to Paris. Or New York. When was the last time you saw India? Your sister made it sound so beautiful.”

Parvati would. Padma had an unbidden thought of Seamus sweating under the midday sun, freckles dusting his shoulders, as he drank in the colors of New Delhi like a child at the carnival.

“You can’t be serious.” She pushed him back until she could see his face. “I have a career, Seamus. I have a flat I really like and friends who would be upset if I just swanned off without notice.”

“I’ve got those things too. But I guess a job at a garage in Cork isn’t as important as your precious career.”

He picked up his jacket from the floor and began tugging it on. Between his quick temper and her cold pragmatism, they always reached this point. She was stupid to even hope for a quiet end.

“Please, Seamus. That’s not what I meant.”

“But it is. I don’t belong in your world, Padma. I don’t read Tolstoy or drink French wine. I don’t know what postcolonial means, and I wouldn’t know a salad fork if you stabbed me in the eye with it. I’ll never be like your university mates.”

“You’re better than them.” And he was, because a university education couldn’t make her laugh and keep her bed warm and show her how to live.

Seamus smiled sadly. “Wish you really believed that, darlin’.”

He left her to catch her breath in the dark, her brow tingling with the memory of his warm lips. Padma stood on trembling legs and put herself back in order. Her fingers shook too much to put her hair up, so she pulled it into a serviceable plait and tucked the pins in her pocket. Her legs were already sore, and she would have bruised hips by the morning. She could sneak out of the gala and plead a headache, but come Monday, everyone would have her figured out.

This would have been the last time, if Seamus had let her pretend it wasn’t love.

*

_Know you've been hurt by someone else_  
 _I could tell by the way you carry yourself_  
 _If you let me, here's what I'll do_  
 _I'll take care of you_  
 _(I've loved and I've lost)_


End file.
